Morgantown & Why I Might Never Visit

Until a few moments ago, Morgantown was a fictitious place that existed solely in Joni Mitchell’s Morning Morgantown song, or at least that’s what I thought. It turns out over 70,000 people call it home with 29,000 of those being students at the University of West Virginia (US). Apparently it was a short time spent studying at this university that provided Joni Mitchell with her inspiration for the song. Puh! Shows what I know! 

I have always been particularly fond of Morning Morgantown. Joni’s lyrics paint vivid images of a 1960's American town at the beginning of its day. Sleepy people ride around on buses, there are little cafes where you can pass time sipping "tea and lemonade", you might "wink at total strangers passing", and buy "a wooden bird with painted wings" (?!). Although Joni confesses she could be describing any town, "Morning any town you name, Morning's just the same", Morgantown is the one she chose to sing about and having not been alive to experience 1960's America, it's sounds like the kind of town that I think I would have liked to have woken up in back then. It's for this reason I’m not sure I'd ever be able to bring myself to visiting present day Morgantown. It’s not that I think there would be anything wrong with the town, I just wouldn't want to shatter the image of the place my mind wonders to whenever I listen to the song. Until today, Joni's Morgantown only had a population of about 500 people. Oh boy, I already know too much. See what I mean?

Morning Morgantown is the opening track on Joni Mitchell's third album Ladies of the Canyon (1970).

[http://youtu.be/ZjgdzDi-pC4]

Django Django - 'Hail Bop'

I keep spelling the name of my favourite new Django Django song incorrectly. It's spelt 'Hail Bop' not 'Hale-Bopp' as in the great comet of 1997 discovered by Mr Hale and Mr Bopp. It is still a tribute to that dirty great crusty gaseous snowball in the sky, but with a clever little play on words to catch people like me out when we're searching for it on the internet. I'm picking up little hints of Weezer meets Man or Astro-Man and I unapologetically love it. The song is taken from their recently released self titled album and is in the running as one of favourites of 2012 so far.

http://youtu.be/jVdvdxKeeiw

"Hail to the bop believe me,

Took your time and come back and see me,

I've been waiting here so long,

and now you've taken off again."

If Hale-Bopp survives it's trip around the sun without melting it won't be back until around the year 4588, by that time I'm fairly certain you, me and Django Django will all be kicking up daisies (or whatever flowers are around then).  Maybe we'll have colonised the moon? The last time comet Hale-Bopp visited we hadn't even built Stonehenge. Amazing.

[Photo: Comet Hale-Bopp E. Kolmhofer, H. Raab; Johannes-Kepler-Observatory, Linz, Austria (http://www.sternwarte.at)]

M Ward - New Song - 'The First Time I Ran Away'

You know it's a good year when M Ward releases a new album. Here's a song called 'The First Time I Ran Away' from his forthcoming album, A Wasteland Companion out on April 10th. I can't wait to hear the whole album and to see him at the Leicester Square Theatre in March. His EOTR performance was up there in my top 5 shows of last year. This guy can play.

[www.mwardmusic.com]

Simon & Garfunkel

I've recently slipped into a Simon & Garfunkel phase. I think I was rearranging my wardrobe and I had a sudden urge to put on Bookends, I blame my wooly cardigans. Any way it got me thinking about which of their songs I like the most and so I put together this list.

In no particular order:

The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)
Flowers Never Bend in the Rainfall
Homeward Bound
Sound of Silence
I am a Rock
El Condor Pasa
A Hazy Shade of Winter
Bridge Over Troubled Water

I always feel that Elmo or Big Bird should have joined them in this video for Feelin' Groovy.

The Phenomenal Handclap Band - 'The Right One'

I like this! The Right One is the latest disco-tastic offering taken from The Phenomenal Handclap Band's new album, Form and Control, due out on February 13th.

NPR explains the background of the song here. Think Logan's Run.

[February and March tour dates]

Peter Broderick - http://itstartshear.com (spoiler alert! video feat. cute cats & ten pin bowling)

*UPDATE* -Hear the new album streaming over on the The Line of Best Fit website

The soothing tones of Peter Broderick will be caressing our ears once again with the release of his second album on February 20th. He's called it http://www.itstartshear.com and it will have a physical release even though the name of the album might suggest otherwise. Peter explains why on http://www.peterbroderick.net/:

"How do you feel about music downloading?


It is a common question addressed to musicians and one that I have been asked several times in interviews. My response has always been that it doesn’t bother me. It is unavoidable. And in the best case someone who downloads an album and likes it might consider buying it at some point, or they might come to a concert and buy it directly from me at the merchandise table.


What does bother me about downloading is how most of the time the listener doesn’t have access to the artwork and/or text that comes along with a physical copy. Perhaps for many people this doesn’t even matter, but personally I have always felt a great satisfaction from having an image and some words by the artist to accompany and enhance the sounds. To take in the full picture as the artist intended, which in my mind includes all the liner notes and artwork as well as the music .


So, http://www.itstartshear.com was designed simply to be a place where all listeners, no matter what format they obtain the music in, can easily access all the lyrics and notes and visuals which are meant go along with the songs. And as a title, http://www.itstartshear.com serves the music well by automatically becoming a link any time the album is written about. A link to the place where people can learn all about the album, directly from the source. A link that is the album."

What a good idea. Peter talks a lot of sense.

It Starts Here (the song) I find very relaxing, that is when I can manage to zone out of thinking about work every time I hear h-t-t-p colon slash slash... Peter might be the only musician who I can forgive for including such a lyric in a song. It helps that the video features cats, throwing stones in rivers and ten pin bowling which pretty much describes my perfect kind of day. Very much looking forward to hearing the whole album.

[http://www.peterbroderick.net/]

Nick Mulvey - 'The Trellis'

If you ever want to hear beautiful guitar music, I can't recommend Nick Mulvey highly enough, the guy is so talented. Check out this interview I did with him a few years back.

Nick has been playing with the London based modern jazz group, Portico Quartet, and is now focusing on his solo career. Thanks to the thelittlestmojo.com for pointing out this lovely song of his called The Trellis.

Everyone should see this guy play at least once, amazing.

[The Trellis]

'Copper Blue' 20 years on

On hearing the news that Sugar will be performing Copper Blue in it's entirety at the San Francisco's noise pop festival next month, I just had to find my copy and give it a whirl. It's been 20 years since the album was released hence the special show and hopefully an International tour of the special show (please??). I still have my brother's CD copy but I think it's high time I committed this album to my vinyl collection.

Copper Blue is an excellent example of an album in the original definition. It flows. It works. There's a special driving timeless energy that I find so refreshing every time I listen. I used to find a similar quality in some of the early REM albums such as Automatic for the People and Out of Time. If I had to take one or two songs off the album and put them in a play list they would still sound good, but if you listen to them as an album they somehow hold more power. It's almost as if you have to go to planet 'Copper Blue' to get the full experience. Instead of just having one or two great tracks as a lot of albums only seem to have these days, there's an overall standard carefully crafted into every track on this album. From the spine tingling chord changes of Hoover Dam (my favourite), to the feel good groove (and tribute to the Pixies) of A Good Idea, Copper Blue is crammed full of so many little intricacies, subtleties and layers and yet it can still sound so simple.

I really hope to be able to see this show.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBqZHPTCV58]